When students start middle school, they leap into a brand new math realm. For many children, the size of the newly acquired math schoolbook, along with the increased workload will seem intimidating. As a middle school math teacher or educator, you’d naturally want to facilitate this tricky transition to ‘tweenhood’ math and help your students. […]
Mean and Median Climate Activity
Mean and Median When I first start to teach measures of central tendency and compare mean and median, finding the median can be fun! Some students think that calculating the average and figuring out the mean is just a bit more… mean. But if we do some games and activities, my students start to find […]
Composition and Decomposition of Polygons
Composition and Decomposition of Polygons Years ago, I had my bathroom redone. The man that came in to do the tiling was quiet, meticulous, patient and efficient. I live in an old house and was amazed at how he placed those tiles and got them to fit perfectly, even though the walls were not always […]
Graphing Inequalities with Cheerios
Graphing Inequalities When I start working with graphing inequalities with my students, and show the symbol <, there is almost always someone who remembers the inequality alligator who opens his mouth to gobble up the greater number. One of the hardest parts of inequalities is figuring out which way the sign faces in terms of […]
Equivalent Expressions Memory Cards
Equivalent Expressions 6th Grade Math I always tell my students to remember that math is a language. Sometimes writing expressions and finding equivalent expressions can be difficult for students. When they just see variable expressions on a page, it can be tough to figure out what the letters and numbers mean. But if we talk […]
Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Factor Worksheets
Launching GCF and LCM with a Real World Context Teachers often want to know how they can teach greatest common factor and the least common multiple in a way that is more concrete or constructivist. Using Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Factor Worksheets is fine but we can do better. They’ve been teaching factor […]
Dividing Fractions Activities
Dividing Fractions is one of the lessons that students struggle with their whole lives. I have heard the argument over and over… “Why do they need to learn to divide fractions by hand when they all have phones and calculators that will do it for them?” “When will they ever be in a position […]
Ordered Pairs on the Coordinate Plane Activity
Ordered Pairs on the Coordinate Plane I can remember learning about longitude and latitude and looking at maps long before I learned about the coordinate plane. And I know I played battleship before learning about ordered pairs in math class! Battleship is a great way to introduce the concept, but those coordinates do not have […]
Unit Rate Activity: Find the Better Deal
Cost Comparison – What’s the better deal? Unit Rate Activity: What makes a bargain? How do you know which price is a better deal? Many products, especially snack foods and cereal, are sold in different sizes. A great way to teach unit rate is by doing unit cost and price comparisons to find out which […]